TATTOOED TODDLER

I'm not sure how many of you saw this, but there was a video posted last weekend of a mother from Cuba holding down her 3-year-old toddler while he was apparently being tattooed by a tattoo artist. This absolutely disgusting! What kind of a parent does this to their child? Better yet, what kind of a tattoo artist would agree to tattoo a child? Not one from the United States that's for sure! As a writer of a monthly tattoo column, I can tell you first hand that this would never happen in the US. 

I will post the video below but not even I was able to watch the video through. It was torturous! In the minute-long clip, the mother, who appeared to be in her 30s, is seen pinning the child down as the tattoo artist tattooed his arm, while the mother repeatedly chanted "mira, mira, mira" to the toddler, which translates in English to "look, look, look", as house music blared in the background. What possesses people to act like this? Now, this poor kid has to grow up with something on his arm that probably won't even like. 

The response from the online community has been obviously negative with one viewer saying, "That's seriously disturbing. Some people should not have the privilege to become a mother. You can clearly see that the child is in pain, and no one is doing anything!" Some other viewers suggested the tattoo was given for cultural reasons. Yeah, nice try! I have many Cuban friends and none of them were tattooed until they were older. It's hard enough to get a child to sit in a chair for the dentist or a hair cut! One viewer said that the mother should be jailed for child abuse and that it even makes her angry when she sees babies with their ears pierced, but this was absurd! She also said that she is actually someone who loves tattoos and has had many piercings herself!

I have to agree with the negative comments on this issue. My thoughts are that the mother should be jailed for child abuse because this is without a doubt in my mind, child abuse. As for the tattoo artist, he should be ashamed of himself and stripped of his tattooing license. Then again, it did happen in Cuba and they are a Communist country, so they don't actually follow the laws that we follow, but being a monthly tattoo columnist, I have to say that I am appalled by this video! Besides, we never got to see what kind of tattoo the kid even got! I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Cuban national flag!